1912 American Type Founders + more
‘Originator of Type Fashions’
American Type Founders’ complete 1912 specimen book. 1348 pages.
Entire book posted online here.
The industrial revolution changed the size of font offerings. What were once posters or broadsheets from small type foundries, ‘type specimens’ became elaborate volumes – today collected as rare editions.
more
Since 2007, Open Library has been digitizing rare type specimens. Available to read online or as PDF downloads.
I found out about them just this weekend – font specialist Laurence Penney had posted links on his Twitter feed. These are them:
Caslon, 1785
Binney & Ronaldson, 1812
Montreal Type Foundry, 1850
Boston Type Foundry, 1860
Fann Street Foundry, 1874
Cincinnati Type Foundry, 1882
Allison & Smith, 1889
Cleveland Type Foundry, 1895
Inland Type Foundry, 1897
Toronto Type Foundry, 1899
Keystone Type Foundry, 1906
Barnhart Bros. & Spindler 1907
and
One of my favorites, here’s a link to Bauer’s offerings from 1900.
Found via Hoefler+Frere-Jones, Lawrence Penney, Oded Ezer, Nina Stoessinger, Falstaff & Fakir and Kris Sowersby
